Why People Unfollow Brands in Social Media

Hint: Brands are boring

A new study by Fractl and BuzzStream based on a survey of more than 900 social media users, looks at the “Unfollow Algorithm” Infographic to determine why people unfollow brands.

Unsurprisingly, the main reasons given are that brand content is repetitive and boring.

Among the study’s interesting findings:

Facebook has the highest unfollow rate – 25% — followed by Twitter Inc. at 12%.

19% respondents said they unfollow a brand on Facebook if updates are too frequent: more than 6 posts a day.

While many brands repeat the same Twitter content as often as a dozen times a day, 21% unfollow social media sites due to repetitive content.

Around 8% said they unfollow brands on Twitter because of lack of customer engagement.

Unfortunately, said Kimberlee Morrison in Adweek, “most unfollows go unnoticed by brand pages, other than the decrease in follower numbers. Almost 60 percent of Twitter and Facebook users simply unfollow brands silently and less than 20 percent hide the posts. Around 10 percent of those who unfollow will instruct their friends to also unfollow, and around 10 percent will post a status update reflecting the change.”